15/12/2022

Falbygdens Energi Nät and Plexigrid have started a collaboration to increase the speed of network connections to the grid for industries, renewable energy and electric car charging in Falbygden through digital solutions. 

Digital solutions can make it easier and faster to connect to the electricity grid, with the help of customers’ own flexibility and batteries. By using data from smart electricity meters that are already available at all customers, Falbygdens Energi Nät gets better knowledge of the situation in the electricity grid. In dialogue with customers, they can find new opportunities to connect to the network earlier than they would otherwise be able to manage. The challenge that Falbygdens Energi Nät has today is that requests for grid connection take a long time to handle, due to limitations of other network owners that are beyond Falbygdens Energi Nät’s control.

From left: Anders Nilsson – Business Development Plexigrid,
John Johansson – Network Manager Falbygdens Energi Nät
and Julius Lundqvist – Electric Power Engineer Falbygdens Energi Nät

Because of this, new connections of electricity-intensive industries, renewable energy production and electric car chargers may have to wait a long time before they are allowed to connect. In practice, the electricity grid becomes a bottleneck for the energy transition. This obstacle can be overcome by using the existing electricity grid in a smarter manner. The benefits are shorter lead times and clearer information about the conditions for customers who want to connect to the electricity grid. 

“Plexigrid’s current solution together with the functions we are jointly developing in the project will make a big difference for us both on a strategic and operational level. We will most likely find connectivity opportunities within existing subscriptions that we otherwise would not have been able to do”, Falbygdens Energi Nät’s Electricity Network Manager, John Johansson comments. 

Plexigrid’s technology helps users visualize, simulate and forecast energy flows in electricity grids in a more detailed way, and with increasing amounts of wind power, solar panels, electric car chargers and heat pumps in the grid, this becomes essential. The system can also be used to develop better long-term plans that future-proof that the grid can cope with the energy transition and help keep costs down for consumers. 

“Sweden has very good conditions to be a pioneer when it comes to streamlining our electricity grids because we already have a high degree of digitization and good access to data. It benefits grid companies, industry and consumers by reducing grid costs and accelerating the energy transition. “, says Alberto Méndez, CEO Plexigrid. 

The project, which will last for one and a half years, is partly financed from the Swedish Energy Agency as the results and experiences are considered to have good opportunities to contribute to the transformation of the energy system through increased flexibility and more efficient use of Swedish electricity grids. 

About Falbygdens Energi Nät 

Falbygdens Energi supplies electricity to more than 17,000 customers in Falköping and the surrounding area and uses new technology to contribute to long-term sustainability in Falbygden. The electricity grid is about 2400 km long, which corresponds to the distance between Falköping and Palermo in Sicily. There is an unusual amount of wind power connected to the grid and they are continuously investing to prepare the grid for more renewable electricity production such as wind and solar. The commissioning of an additional 20 MW of renewable production is planned as early as next year. 

About Plexigrid 

Plexigrid is a technology provider that develops software to streamline the planning and operation of power grids at the distribution level. Plexigrid’s solutions can increase the utilization rate of the grid and free up capacity by utilizing flexibility to integrate more renewable energy, charging infrastructure, heat pumps and energy storage.  The company is based in Gijón, Spain and Stockholm, Sweden. Plexigrid was founded in 2020 by Alberto Méndez, former Regional CEO of Siemens-Gamesa and Head of Wind at Vattenfall; Rubén Medina, Head of Engineering and Engineering at OX2 and Vattenfall; and Pablo Arbóleya, Professor of Electric Power Engineering at the University of Oviedo.